Your Key to Untapped Value Outside the S&P 500

Molly Landes, Head of ETF Capital Markets at Allspring, shares the firm's "quantamental" approach to SMID-cap investing and enthusiasm for the ETF wrapper at Future Proof 2025. 

Transcript

Opening: Going “Gung-ho” for ETFs

Landes: A lot of them have been just waiting for us to go live with the ETF wrapper. So, everyone's been very open to it, very gung-ho to get them out there. You know, I think that says it all. We launched eight in less than a year.

Bringing Innovation to SMID-Caps

Nadig: Hi there, I'm here with Molly Landes, the Head of ETF Capital Markets at Allspring Global Investments. I'm hearing a lot about mid-caps from advisors. We're talking about AI and how that may benefit the mid-caps and small caps. You guys just launched a product in this space. Talk to me a little bit about your approach here.

Landes: Absolutely. We just launched our ticker, ASCE, codenamed Ace. It's our SMID product. We have an awesome what we like to call “quantamental” PM team. So, they have a proprietary quant model that's been in existence for 17 years. So, it's got a very long track record, you know, coupled with the fundamental experience and stock-picking experience from our PMs.

It results in a really wonderful outcome, really strong performance. It’s the first retail product available with this strategy. It's traditionally been in an SMA. And we just, you know, skipped over the mutual fund and went straight to the ETF wrapper.

All-In on the ETF Wrapper

Nadig: That's pretty unusual. We've heard a lot about things like share class conversions for mutual funds. All that stuff's going on. From the capital markets perspective, has it been a big shift for the firm to now be dealing with these daily traded liquid vehicles that are out there on exchanges? Not every firm jumps into that.

Landes: Yeah, I mean, I'd say that the PMs and the firm are both really excited to have ETFs. A lot of them have been just waiting for us to, you know, go live with the ETF wrapper. So, everyone's been very open to it, very gung-ho to get them out there. You know, I think that says it all. We launched eight in less than a year. You know, I joined last September, actually, so coming up on a year, and we got them straight out the door. We’ve got four fixed income, four equities ready to go for advisors to build those models with.

Nadig: And does that quantamental strategy apply across the firm?

Landes: No, it's different. So, we have a large-cap strategy also that does this quantamental strategy as well – not in an ETF wrapper yet. But we launched the SMID-cap because we saw the opportunity. It felt like it was a need. There’s are a lot of advisors that are looking for this mid-cap exposure, especially since again you mentioned the AI. And they're all heavily invested in the Mag 7, and they're looking for a diversification opportunity. And the SMID-space is the exact thing that they need to kind of diversify away from that and capitalize on some untapped value.

Nadig: You said four fixed income. I'm guessing the other four equity out of the eight that you launched. Talk to me a little bit about the other equity products and where they fit in. Is it just a straight-up run down the cap spectrum?

Landes: Yeah, so we've got large-cap growth, special large value, U.S. large-cap core—so all U.S. – and then, obviously, the U.S. SMID-cap as well.

Nadig: Well, great. Congratulations. I wish you the best of luck.

Landes: Awesome. Thank you.

Nadig: Thank you, Molly.